According to the EU Council Directive 95/59/EC of Nov. 27, 1995 there are four different types of smoking articles that are considered to be cigars or cigarillos: 1) rolls of tobacco made entirely of natural tobacco; 2) rolls of tobacco with an outer wrapper of natural tobacco; 3) rolls of tobacco with an outer wrapper of the normal color of a cigar, and a binder, of reconstituted tobacco, where the wrapper is fitted in spiral form with a predetermined angle; and 4) rolls of tobacco with an outer wrapper, of the normal color of a cigar, of reconstituted tobacco, with a relatively large unit weight, and with a relatively large circumference.
Natural tobacco is relatively expensive compared to reconstituted tobacco. In addition, the handling of natural tobacco requires more care and labor than the handling of reconstituted tobacco. In particular, in cigarillos made with a reconstituted tobacco outer wrapper, the bunch that is subsequently overwrapped with the reconstituted tobacco material may be manufactured on standard, high-speed machinery employed in the production of cigarettes with little or no changes. Therefore, the cost of manufacturing cigars and cigarillos of the first and second types is generally much greater than the cost of manufacturing cigarillos of the third and fourth types.
However, natural tobacco is considered to be of higher quality and better taste than reconstituted tobacco. Therefore, it would be desirable to provide a filter cigarillo of the second type that has a lower production cost.
The present invention is directed to a cigarillo including a filter.